Sunday, June 12, 2011

Doctors and Guns

Sebastian has an interesting post about how foolish the new gag-law in Florida is. On this we agree, but he made an odd point along the way about how many doctors are on his side.

Says Sebastian:

Gag laws are just a bad idea. Especially when you consider the number of doctors that are actually on our side. There are many. Some of them even read this blog.

Say I:

Oh, please Sebastian, MANY doctors are on your side? Give me a break, will ya? What percentage do you put on the “many” idea? I’d say it’s about 5% and you wanna know why? Doctors are highly educated, they’re trained in critical thinking and for the most part can see the fallacy of what you preach.

Don't you (gun grabbers) believe we should just comply with a robbery and everything will be okay? Didn't work out so well for this guy: http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2011/06/10/story-columbus-clerk-shot-during-store-robbery.html

I think you guys (gun grabbers) would be surprised how many ER doctors carry and how many MDs take advanced handgun training. We see a very high percentage of MDs in classes. The docs understand the science of how dangerous their job is. You guys assume too much.

Mikeb, you know that we cannot quantify how many Doctors carry and "believe what you believe". In my own experience, in the classes that I am involved in, Doctors make up about 20 percent of the people taking the classes and women are about 10-20 percent.

These are not "claims," Anonymous. Their just ideas. Take 'em or leave 'em.

One of Sebastians commenters claimed to be a "highly educated mathematician." I asked him how many of his "highly-educated" colleagues are into guns. I haven't checked for an answer, but I think I know what the truth is. Very few.

Your cite is to a website run by a retired Cuban Doctor named Miguel Faria. There are a number of problems with his criticism--chief among which is the fact it's quite apparent he never read Kellermann's study.

But let's examine Faria ab it further. His work was never peer-reviewed--in fact, it doesn't appear in MEDLINE which is standard for any medical-related studies or criticism.

Faria heads a group called AAPS. Positions the AAPS takes, among others, is that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, vaccinations cause autism, evolution is a hoax, climate chaange is a hoax, etc.

Arthur Kellerman changed his own numbers in his 1996 study. Feel free to look up his numbers as they are easily assessable at wiki

"after adjusting for other factors (such as a police-report history of violence in the home, a convicted felon in the home, drug or alcohol abuse in the home, race, etc.) there remained an independent 2.7 times increase in risk of homicide, specifically associated with a firearm in the home"

In other words, one's odds are 2.7% IF one has no history of violence and doesn't associate with gangs or drug related activities. Sounds like most gun owners to me.

BTW - Context is important. While his number 43:1 ratio is true in totality (on the surface), when broken down the odds are far less for most gun owners.